


Their bed of ashes

by crazed_peanut



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Marauders, One Shot, POV Remus Lupin, Post-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, but so does Sirius, they're both just broken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazed_peanut/pseuds/crazed_peanut
Summary: *REWRITTEN*A truly hopeless fic which is set between Harry’s 3rd and 4th year at Hogwarts. Before Sirius flees from Europe, he spends some time with Remus.I also post on harrypottefanfiction.com under JTMoore.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 13





	Their bed of ashes

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a drabble, which I posted rather rushed and it felt incomplete. I rewrote it and it turned to this.  
> Lyrics at the beginning and end from Cage The Elephant's Ready to let go.  
> This is my first Harry Potter fanfiction (technically), my (cringy) older work is for the Phandom.

_…On both sides the vow was broken_ _  
Oh my my, I'm the one  
Trying to hide this damage done  
One day, all our secrets will be spoken…_

The scrawny black dog walks quickly inside once Remus opens the door. He doesn’t turn around right away. Locking the door, he notices the animal panting has ceased and hears a wholly human sigh. It is not hard for him to distinguish these sounds- not when his flat is quiet, not when he knows this panting and this breathing in his bones.

“Dumbledore wants me to stay with you for a while” Sirius begins.

It is unnecessary. Dumbledore sent an owl explaining. The almighty conductor of their lives orchestrated this, down to the exact time Sirius is supposed to show up.

Remus wants to be rude and stay quiet but gives in to the expectant silence. “It would be foolish not to follow his suggestions.”

“Suggestion… you make it sound like I have a choice.”

“I suppose you don’t. You’re not a free man, Sirius, but if the idea of living with me is so repulsive to you, I am sure you will find another way.”

Nothing in Sirius’ tone suggests that, but Remus is grasping at air just to feel offended. He is looking for that bitter hatred he lived with for twelve years, for the indifference which set in beside it after a while. One does not spend over a decade nurturing these feelings only for them to buckle under the pressure of truth. He wants to be resentful, for Sirius to antagonise him, for Sirius to want him. In this new normal, where the love of his young adult life is not a traitorous bastard, he wants Sirius to be everything to him, and nothing at all. His mind is not made up and he’s fighting, fighting…

It should be easy. He is innocent, _innocent._ Remus knew the whole story now, the full truth. _It wasn’t me, Remus…. Moony, I didn’t do it._ Sirius’ averment sounds in his head as clear as when he had first heard it in the Shrieking Shack. This reality refuses to seep into Remus’s body and lingers on his skin, suffocates him, poisons him. Sirius’ exoneration spelled Remus’ culpability. It is impossible to consider oneself as the person who turned their back on their lover and friend, as the one who believed in a previously unthinkable notion. It is impossible to look in the mirror and accept this about yourself, Remus considers. Sirius’ presence in his apartment is choking him.

Whether they stand in the hallway for seconds or minutes Remus does not know. He forces himself down to the living room and Sirius silently follows.

“I don’t have much, but the couch should be comfortable enough to sleep on. I learned this spell…” Remus stutters. He only learned the spell because he knew Sirius would stay with him. “It makes the couch pillows fluffier.”

“Cheers” says Sirius, more polite than he ever was. There exists no universe where Sirius does not realise Remus did this for him only.

“Bathroom, as well. Left you a towel.”

Sirius only nods this time and heads into the shower.

***

Nothing comes effortlessly in the days after for them. In many ways one man had lived a life, whereas the other was stuck into a non-reality from 13 years ago. It is uncomfortable to Remus to live with a man who thinks he knows him. It is troubling that in so many ways Sirius still does. Remus is continuously unsettled, not least by the fact that money is so tight he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to continue to support Sirius, as well as himself.

It is the third evening they spend in silence over tea when Sirius, without sharing his intentions walks out of the house as a dog. They have not discussed this. It seemed only sensible for Remus to believe Sirius would stay inside at all times. Another cage, perhaps. And so he is stunned when he has to get up and close the door after the dog, not knowing if he will see it again or what it would bring back.

Sirius, naturally, returns after a while.

“Where did you get these?” Remus asks motioning to the groceries Sirius piles on the table.

“I stole them from a muggle shop.”

A nonchalant answer.

“Sirius, this is a crime, even in the muggle world.”

“If I go to jail again, Lupin, it’ll be because I murdered 13 people. I might as well get us some eggs along the way, seeing as you’ve been so worried about feeding us.”

“You didn’t murder anyone” Remus observes and neglects to comment on the other part of Sirius’ statement, the one which is actually true.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to _me_.” 

Remus wanted to stop himself from saying anything. He doesn’t want to give Sirius a wider view into his mind, yet it is so, so hard to keep away from someone who’s intertwined with you.

“You haven’t a clue what it’s like there, Lupin. At least now I can get food when I’m starving, whatever the means.”

An animosity builds up in Remus. The longest conversation they’ve held since the fugitive arrived is about to turn into an argument and Remus wants it to. Sirius, if uncoerced, will bottle his character for ever. However scared Remus is of what’s about to burst out of himself, he is tenfold more curious to see, actually see Sirius. Though he dismissed it a few days ago, when he caught Sirius crying over an old Charms textbook, now suddenly he wants to know.

“You’ve not spoken to me since you got here, _Black,_ to give me a clue _._ ” His tongue turns to ice. Sirius was many things, never a true Black; and so this is meant as an insult, though Remus only manages to convey the disdain in being called “Lupin” by Sirius.

“How am I to speak to you when you’re in the other room? Or when you won’t even look at me? I don’t believe either of us has mastered telepathy recently but do correct me if I’m wrong.” All of this, said in a hurt tone Sirius has never used before, stabs Remus at the right place. Identifying and exploiting weak spots is evidently not one of the excellent qualities Sirius has parted with in Azkaban.

Remus’ face is burning with shame. Trapped in his mind for the past few days, debating what to do, he had failed to act in any way. He had drifted in and out of Sirius’ living space but paid him no attention. There was something, though Remus cannot pinpoint it exactly, that Sirius is avoiding. He is as much afraid to find himself in this scene as Remus is. 

“I’m listening now.” He looks up then. Sirius is facing the window overlooking the tiny back yard. His shoulders, Remus thinks he can see it even through his shirt, are scarred and tense. He waves his hand in a _there’s nothing to say_ motion _._

Remus takes two steps toward him, wants to grab him and force him around. Sirius flinches at the movement behind him.

“This war, Lupin…”

“Stop calling me that!” he can’t help himself. It’s painful beyond belief to be addressed as a stranger by the man who… the one who has known him more intimately than anyone.

“This war has made me a monster. I don’t want you to know him. He should be locked up.” Sirius states, now facing Remus. His eyes are sunken and wet. Remus waits, but silence settles again.

“Is this it? You come to my house after _years_ and give me this? You used to be boisterous, Padfoot, never would shut up. Now, when it matters, when this conversation is the _only_ thing that matters to me, you refuse me.”

Sirius offers nothing in the way of words. His expression, should Remus choose to notice it, betrays it all. A selfish desire to learn every detail and to continue hearing Sirius’ voice blinds Remus. He presses deeper into a wound both men know is not healed, the depths of which is only clear to one of them. The other speaks:

“I have dreamed of you, and I have missed you. I have wanted to be in a room with you again for thirteen years. And now you don’t want me to know. You don’t want _me._ ”

“Moony…”

“Don’t.”

“I have nothing to give you.”

“Why not? Curse got it? Did someone curse...”

“FEAR GOT IT, REMUS! I’m scared.”

A shout. A beat. Then many tears. Sirius slumps in the armchair, cries; Remus remains rooted next to the fireplace. It is this, Sirius’ restrained weeping, which makes Remus grasp it. He doesn’t want to know, even if Sirius wanted to tell him, even if Sirius wasn’t horrified like a child of the dark. He had been keeping exclusively to himself, and Remus had been holding a grudge, feeling like he was owed an explanation, offended from being ignored. After all, _he_ was the one who had spent over a decade believing his lover had murdered their friends and twelve other muggles, just because they were there. He, Remus, had had to spend countless nights trying to make sense of the reality which he was abruptly thrust in, one which didn’t match up with his private experiences and feelings. Remus was the one stuck having to believe Sirius was guilty. A now shameful notion had been infesting Remus’ mind ever since the Shrieking Shack- Sirius had had it easy in Azkaban, comforted by the absolute thought of his own innocence. The others had had to battle, while the dog remained inside, and his only mission was to remember his inculpability.

Remus feels himself a fool. The horrors of Azkaban had taken a discernible toll on Sirius’ appearance, a toll Remus noticed, and which should have at once made him stop comparing miseries beyond his understanding. The man he had once loved is no more. The malnourished being in front of him is overcome by only one emotion. Fear, something which was not in Sirius’ repertoire, the Sirius who went to Azkaban, has consumed him. One man goes in, another one comes out. An echo of Barty Crouch Jr’s swap with his mother, though the transformation here is much harsher. Remus mustn’t drill anymore. He must apologise, though no words are powerful enough.

“Okay” he says “okay, Sirius, you don’t have to. Here-”

Remus levitates a blanket from the couch, and it drapes itself gracefully around Sirius’s body. He continues crying.

“What’s the spell?” Sirius asks.

“Which one?”

“This… the blanket… you made it come to me.”

Remus tells him, confused.

“Do you realize, Moony, that I couldn’t use magic for twelve years?”

Remus hadn’t. The spell lingers in the air inappropriately. The memory of Sirius upset over the charms textbook is a slap across the face. The dread unravels, and so does Sirius, in a precipitous manner. Remus kneels next to him because there is nothing else to do. Really, what could be done? What one sentence disperses 13 years’ worth of guilt, despair, loneliness, and loss?

“They won’t get you again. I will protect you. My word.”

A promise which cannot be kept. Sirius has been back in Remus’ life for mere months, and already Remus is falling back into his old habits of needing to protect Sirius at all cost. He cannot guarantee safety, or anything really, but he wants to, how he craves to… 

When Remus takes Sirius’ bony hand, a hand which feels completely foreign in his own, he knows Sirius will not stop crying. He wants to weep himself. How unjust and ugly the scene is now overwhelms him. So much time has passed that hope seems foolish, and any action- inadequate. They have shared desperate moments in a past long forgotten, but torture like this was unknown to Remus.

What needs to happen? In this instant, a hug, a kiss, a declaration. Tomorrow, the same repeated. It is unsustainable. Two outcasts cannot pull through together on love alone. Neither has more to offer to the other, both need so much more. Remus had listened to Dumbledore’s speech when the old man insisted that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times. Foolish words, empty. What action turns on the light? How will they become unstuck? The wave of a hand, a flick of a wand?

More broken than ever, Remus kisses Sirius, presents him this useless gesture. He had expected his heart to unclench, but the feeling never comes. The man he doesn’t know kisses back though coyly, still crying. The old lovers, the strangers freeze in this moment, but a callous misery is wrenched there as well. Voldemort seems to have destroyed only the things he values least- hope, relationships, and happiness.

It is late. Or it is early. A crippled Sirius and a desperate Remus share this night, and nothing more.

_…Underneath this bed of ashes, still withholding everything_ _  
Like we were never close…_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> This was inspired by aryastark_valarmorghulis's "What became of the dreams we had" and "I miss the misery", who's work is far superior to this.  
> I recently (thanks, quarantine) re-read all the books for the first time in years. After spending so long away from these characters, I now can't seem to get away and they haunt me. I have enjoyed Lupin and Sirius inhabiting my mind.  
> Please let me know what you think in the comments, and hit the kudos if the feels have hit you.


End file.
